The Teacher

UV 850/10,000 The Teacher Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say Exodus 4 v 12 The Lord God reveals Himself as the teacher. Other teachers cease to teach us after a while for they have taught us all they know but the Lord remains our permanent and eternal teacher. There is always something He can teach us afresh every day. He is one teacher, the pupil can never excel though He frees us to do greater things. He teaches us what to learn and what to unlearn. The entire universe is His classroom. He uses various objects in the universe and nature as props and objects to demonstrate, to illustrate and to relate. He promised to be with the mouth of Moses and to teach him what he should say to his own people, the Hebrew slaves as well as to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Moses described himself as a man with a stuttering tongue. But, the Lord chided him saying, “ who is it that gave man the power to hear and to speak?” God is not concerned if our speech is stuttering. He can handle that. He is concerned if our faith is flickering. Jehovah taught Moses to lead. Jesus taught His disciple to pray, to heal, to deliver, to expand their faith, to execute miracles in His name. The Holy Spirit continues the teaching ministry of God and teaches men to be patient, to be wise and understanding. A man who does not hear cannot speak. He remains deaf and mute. So as a practice, we need to listen first before we speak. This is the godly order or the way God has ordained it. The power to speak words of hope and life into the lives of others is such an amazing gift. We need to use it wisely after we fill our minds with the Word of God. The Word of God held in our minds and hearts begins to burn and churn our intellect and imagination and becomes the cool word of wisdom when it travels up to our mouths. Isn’t it an absolute miracle that words with meaning and purpose emerge out of the convoluted pipes of our brains? We can show our appreciation of this gift by using it wisely, often and well. We need to obey the Lord in simply obeying Him in going to the places and people and missons He sends us to. If He has asked us to go some place, He will surely provide us the means to get there. Once He sends us as a messenger, He will give us the message that we have to deliver. We need not premeditate and worry about what we will speak for the Lord promises to teach us what we should say. He will give us wisdom and words to speak that no man can deny or contradict. He will sharpen our minds like a razor and our tongues like a sword. In the use of our tongues, we must be shrewd like a serpent to avoid unnecessary trouble or controversy and gentle like a dove not to hurt others. More than half of life’s troubles are due to the use of our tongues unwisely or inappropriately. The other half is due to the unwise use of our minds- thoughts, emotions and decisions. When we yield our spirits and minds to the Holy Spirit, He will teach us what to think and talk. As far as our feelings are concerned, He will comfort us regardless of what situation we are in or what deficiency we are suffering from. We need not be worried that we will forget something important that we need to say or do. As a Remembrancer, He will remind us. Just as our tongues are guarded by as many as 32 teeth, our speech needs to be guarded with wisdom and discretion. The power to speak is an amazing and awesome faculty God has given mankind alone among all species. It is the very power of God –the same power that brought about all that exists on the earth. The power of life and death lies in our tiny mouths. While we need not premeditate on what we are going to speak, we need to meditate on as many as 32 verses that speak about the wise use of our tongues beginning with the above uni-verse. The Lord will then salt our conversation, making our words tasty and gracious to the hearer. We ourselves are hearers of our own words. So just as we roll a morsel of food in our mouths before tasting more, we must check our words for their import and impact on others. We need to take not only every thought captive to Christ but we must take every word we speak captive to Christ. Prateep V Philip